Thank You, Carol Leigh

photo by Jan Weaver

“Good girls go to heaven, Bad girls go everywhere” ~ From the Harlot Herald, 1985 newsletter publication by Scarlot Harlot

As I consider the complex and dynamic realities of my life as a sex worker, I’m thinking about what it means to be a bad girl who goes everywhere. Everywhere — as in slithering between cosmic tapestries of fate and embracing erotic truth in a world that is pleasure-phobic and whore-phobic. Everywhere — as in crawling discreetly from one hotel to another, one car to another, one city to another, one advertising platform to another. Everywhere — as in we are shapeshifters! some of us are queer, disabled and neurodivergent. Many of us are parents, artists, students, teachers, criminals. Everywhere — as in we are cultural influencers subverting hegemonic feminisms and we are keen on surviving and thriving in capitalism on our own terms. Everywhere — as in poverty often leaves us understanding this is our best option. Everywhere — as in we *are* everywhere and our ubiquitous nature entails existing underground and on the fringe… places the general public can’t even fathom approaching but loves to fetishize and victimize.

Today the Everywhere for me is in the infinite tenderness and vulnerability through which we often witness and hold our clients through shame and grief. The physical sex part is only one dimension of it. Eroticism is a portal that can activate the movement of emotional landscapes, noticing what’s been missing or what needs tending to: trauma, desire, touch, intimacy. Fundamental human inquiries that create a time collapsing effect in the body. Exploring this with clients can be intense, revealing, exhausting, mystifying. There is experiential loss for us too, in the secrecy and in the stigma, especially in the harassment and isolation we anticipate will follow. Yet there is nowhere else I’d rather be, as a genderqueer person I have always crossed these thresholds. What I’m also saying is I have a tendency to fractalize, and after 11 years in the industry I’ve seen and experienced a hell of a lot. I wouldn’t be able to articulate and value the dense perplexity of it all without the lineage of courageous and outspoken Whores who came before me. Carol Leigh being one of them.

After receiving news of Carol Leigh AKA Scarlot Harlot’s passing to the realm of the Beloved Dead last week, I have been joyously revisiting Unrepentant Whore, her collection of poems and essays on sex work activism published in 2004. Quite emotional as I reflect on her riveting & immense contributions to the movement and her wild and theatrical strategies for interrupting political and religious agendas that were (and still are) keeping erotic laborers silenced and under-resourced. I read her essay “Inventing Sex Work” five years into the industry myself, while making more valiant efforts to better understand the particularities of my identity. It was early 2016, I was hopelessly isolated and just beginning to consider the importance of cultivating a wider web of solidarity… like who do I share this part of my life with? Who can I turn to for support around assault both by clients and in my interpersonal life? What does it mean to become more visible? To take my livelihood seriously? Her scholarship and disposition on sw issues provided context for my survival. She spoke to and emphasized the importance of coining the term “sex work” as a response to feminisms that continued disregarding the humanity, agency and intersectionality of erotic laborer realities. She spoke openly about classism, racism, poverty, bodily autonomy and how criminalization created these abusive power dynamics between hookers, cops and institutions.

“Sex work” has fully folded into the cultural lexicon, mostly due to the communities of hookers, strippers, doms and porn performers who embraced it, but also because of the global solidarity network that emerged from sw activism of the 80’s. Suffice it to say I think the shift in language was necessary, reinforcing and collectivizing the push for human rights and decriminalization across many spectrums. May we never forget this part of the story.

Regarding the anti-porn conferences and feminist circles she was orbiting in the late 1970’s Carol said: “But how could women who worked as prostitutes and porn models tell the truth about their lives in the hostile environment of the womens movement? The words used to define us contain the history of centuries of slurs. Some feminists use slurs against us such as “whore” and the censure of pornography as a weapon against the contemporary sex trade”

I learned that when AIDS began hitting the bay area, sex workers were cornered as vectors for the rapid spreading virus (no surprise there) and legislation was being passed to force mandatory HIV testing on workers including felony charges for those who tested positive. During this time Carol Leigh collaborated and organized with other AIDS activists, and educated the public on prostitution, safer sex practices and criminalization issues. I am in awe of the way she inserted herself into spaces as an unapologetic whore and I am impressed by her dedication to being a visible nuisance to the status quo. She had exquisite timing, and her values really did expand to meet her artistic and erotic proclivities. As a journalist, she interviewed women from all realms of sw experience and created a whole archive of films documenting the political actions she facilitated or participated in. She was often seen topless or in some gorgeous and extravagant high femme costume, singing, screaming and cracking jokes. She called herself a pleasure activist before sexological bodywork and many forms of sex therapy or pleasure centering frameworks had even emerged. As a poet and performance artist I think she really nailed the drama of it all.

“It was my fate. I was destined to become a sexy monster — thrust into the battlefield of sexual politics — cast now as a victim, a survivor, and a traitor to my gender” — Carol Leigh

Over the years she was a member of COYOTE, co-founded BAYSWAN (Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network), served on the city’s commission on prostitution and did outreach + advocating work for those incarcerated and most marginalized in the community. Because she was a spokesperson for the movement she encountered so much bullshit and disrespect from politicians, talk show hosts, feminist organizations etc. I think she took it on with grace, tenacity and a lot of humor, as much as any sacred whore clown could do. How else do we deflect the absurdity of constant stigmatization and dehumanization? As she once said “I think particularly when life is hard, I always resort to comedy.”

I met her a few times over the years and felt great solace in her presence. In conversations with younger sex workers, I noticed her willingness to be curious and changed. After 40 years of sw activism she continued making herself available to community, advocating and uplifting sex worker led organizing and furthermore welcoming intersectional critique. She was interviewed with Moses Moon aka thotscholar on the Old Pros podcast last year, the episode: Perspectives on language was a vibrant and revelatory conversation around how language is utilized in sex work discourse. She was so open, kind and engaged. Responding to a shift in “sex work” terminology and “sex work is work” posturing the movement has taken on to legitamize our humanity she said:

“its fascinating to me to see that theres a left discussion now of …well does the term sex work imply that work is good? and Its very interesting to me the way people are deconstructing it”

Thank you Carol Leigh. Thank you for your devotion, your style, your audacity, your courage, your honesty, your poetry, your critique, your curiosity and your strategies for moving towards freedom for all whores.

Thank you for modeling Whore elderhood in a beautiful way.

All blessings to you, forever more. We carry your legacy in our deviant hearts. May your transition to ancestor be bright, easeful and sexy.